University Students’ Council report card

These are The Gazette’s annual report cards for the University Students’ Council executives. Calculations were based upon feedback received from 54 members of council. Councillors, senators and governance members were asked to grade each executive member, while coordinators and commissioners graded solely the president and the executive member who oversaw their position. The letter grades were converted to scaled numbers and the average for each position was calculated. Gazette grades and evaluations were agreed upon by the Gazette editorial board.

Adam Fearnall
President

“Although Adam may have accomplished parts of his platform he was not transparent and did not seem as though he even cared about accomplishing what he was elected to do. It seemed as though this year was focused on one thing – changing the structure of the board and elections. If this was what I knew the USC was going to focus on for the year I would have thought otherwise when casting my vote.”

Gazette’s grade: B-Fearnall had big ideas this year, but it’s disconcerting that almost all of them were a complete surprise. He challenged the administration in Western Untold, revamped University Students’ Council elections and separated the board of directors from the Executive Council—none of which he mentioned in his campaign. His legacy is safe in the USC revamp, but the multi-faith debacle and allegations of elections committee bias leave a stain not easily forgotten.

Tony Ayala
Vice-president finance

Council’s grade: B+“The most visible vice-president. Transparent to council. Full of heart and passion.”

“Out of my four years at Western, Tony was by far one of the most transparent executive members, his door was always open, and if he wasn’t in his office – he was most likely at one of the operations trying to see how we can better serve students.”

Gazette’s grade: AAyala impressed the editorial board this year with a clear focus on transparency and accountability during his term. Ayala took his responsibility to perform due diligence extremely seriously, and had no problems owning up to the USC’s issues. Most importantly, his budget took heavy fire, but ultimately stood its ground unaltered after hours of council debate.

Myuri Komaragiri
Vice-president campus issues

Council’s grade: A-“She’s extremely passionate about the Campus Issues portfolio. Her passion is extremely apparent when she speaks about the services under her portfolio. She’s also very approachable, which I believe is extremely important for someone in her position.”

“She gives her coordinators freedom to run their own services and does whatever she can do to help implement their visions. She separates her personal feelings and professional life very well, in a way most of us should aspire to be like.”

Gazette’s grade: BKomaragiri’s passion for her portfolio was obvious to anyone who cared to look, and made her extremely well-liked by council. Further, she gave solid support to her stakeholders. However, the miscommunication that led to the defunding of Holy Book Day and her failure to adequately consult the faith groups during the proposed multi-faith move were errors in judgment that should not have occurred.

Alysha Li
Vice-president university affairs

Council’s grade: B“An expert in her portfolio, she’s refined and full of knowledge and compassion.”

“Frankly, it has been yet another year where the UA is not present in the USC office or at Western for that matter. Most of the time her door is closed and she is off at Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance or Canadian Association of Student Alliances meeting. She is very approachable when she is around and is always willing to talk to you about any concerns you may have.”

Gazette’s grade: BLi spent much of her time away from Western in her role as Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance president. This left the UA portfolio feeling neglected this year. However, OUSA accomplished a lot, such as a lower Ontario tuition cap and a number of policy papers that were passed into legislation. These accomplishments will hopefully benefit all students in the province, making Li’s term worthwhile.

Jeremy Santucci
Vice-president communications

Council’s grade: B“Jeremy has done a lot of foundational work in the portfolio in terms of setting strategic plans for the future.”

“Focused primarily on press-releases as primary form of disseminating information.”

“Did not provide council with any notice before large decisions, resulting in an inability for councillors to address their constituents with major concerns”

Gazette’s grade: BWhile Santucci did a very good job pursuing various avenues to keep students informed, some of the USC’s biggest issues this year can be traced to poor communication. From the sophing selection issue, to the multi-faith debacle, to the USC website’s lack of transparent navigation, a distinct lack of communication played a key role in many of the USC’s failings.

Erin Uberig
Vice-president student events

“Props to Uberig for putting her foot down and making the necessary changes, even when they may seem unpopular. She could have worked on supporting her coordinators a bit better, but all events seemed to go off really well this year.”

Gazette’s grade: B+Uberig brought home the goods this year. Charity Ball tripled last year’s donations and events seemed to run like clockwork under her guidance—at the very least there were fewer complaints this year. She took substantial criticism for her part in changing the soph selection process, and while it could have been handled better, the need to deal with rampant nepotism was a crucial one.

The editorial board is comprised of editors and volunteers from the Gazette. Opinion articles written by the editorial board receive contributions from multiple Gazette writers and represent the paper's position on an issue.

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Oh really Colin? They don’t? Because I spent 4 years at Western and that’s about all The Gazette ever did. That and Sudoku.

But it’s alright because it’s a daily student newspaper written, for the most part, by full-time students. You can b*tch about the quality of the articles, but then you’re obviously not putting their creative process into the proper context.

You all need to stop being so butthurt because they said some negative things about your token USC preps. The USC does nothing more than piss away students’ hard earned money on frivolous sh*t, every year. Accept it, and accept that you have a student newspaper which is quite fond of pointing out USC blunders.

It’s no different than the G&M, NP, Star, etc. constantly berating our Provincial and Federal politicians.

Colin

People don’t pick up the Gazette for questionable movie reviews and fluff pieces. The quality of the paper has gone steadily downhill over at least the past four years I’ve been reading it. This student body deserves better journalism, and I give you guys a ‘D’

Elizabeth

Club executives should get the chance to grade some USC positions, clubs are always promised great things during campaigning and we have no way to hold some of these people accountable

T

I’m curious as to where the Gazette report cards are. Numerous universities run their student publication on budgets far smaller than the Gazette’s, even with a comparative student base. Why aren’t we grading the fact that we can’t criticize the Gazette without fear that we’ll be compared to propagandists or fascists?

Get off your high horse. None of you could do the job that these fine men and women did this year.

Anony-Mouse

Can we officially stop calling the proposed multi-faith space a ‘debacle?’ And maybe can the whole issue altogether?

It didn’t happen, everyone seems to be sorry about how the events transpired, except the one major campus publication that delivers USC news to the students continually must bring this up somehow in every article on the USC.

It’s like the USC releasing a presser saying that “the soup of the week at the Spoke is butternut squash and that the Gazette will no doubt be bitter about this, since they seem to be bitter about everything USC.”

Come on guys! There is a very real perception on campus that the Gazette-USC feud invalidates the work of both sides when covering/supporting the other. Give it up!